The story of a lonesome ol'Jerome

*20 year old Gwyn's POV*

After two years of being together, living in my dorm room, Damien started spending less time with me. I was a junior so I was really busy anyway, at first I didn't notice. He was also frustrated that I couldn't go out drinking with him, being that he was four years older.

Then, one day, he left a letter taped to our door, telling me he had left for "safer harbors." I later found out that meant the dorm room of a student in the class below mine, that he had been sleeping with for some time.

He found me too negative. He was frustrated with his inability to 'fix' my 'problems.' I hadn't known that there was anything wrong with me that needed fixing.

The pain I felt then was incredible, it was right before finals. It was the first time someone had left me when I had taken it for granted that our relationship was permanent, strong, and happy, because I had honestly perceived it to be so at its core.

Damien's new, younger girlfriend went to stay with her family that summer. Somehow Damien and I had sex twice, and I felt terrible about it, but I had foolishly hoped it might change things. Of course it didn't, he didn't speak to me again for several years, and he never told his girlfriend about it. I knew because she and I became good friends years later, after she dumped him.

Notes

random bonus: if, let's say, Damien were based on a real person, it might be interesting to know that he continued to date subsequently younger and younger college students that he met through his job at the Food Commons.

for a long time he was a noise musician, but then totally switched gears and started taking ecstacy like every weekend, last Gwyn heard of him...